VAULT FESTIVAL REVIEW: Me Myself I ★★★★

Me Myself I
The Pit, Vault Festival
Tuesday 4th - Sunday 9th February 2020

So rarely do Casting Directors get the recognition they deserve, especially as they are the cement that forms the chemistry we talk about happening on stage all the time, but for 'Me Myself I' in particular, the idea of having a clone throws the identical and similarity ideas into play, and from this Belinda Norcliffe CDG must be commended to the highest regard for casting Leah and Mhairi Gayer in the role of Lana and her identical clone, Lena, with both also having to deal with portraying a developed version of eachother throughout rather respectfully.

Lana begins the piece recollecting a moment in time where she met her boyfriend Ben, who we never see on stage and is left to our imagination; she is in fact reciting this story for Lena, a story in which she hopes outlives her own life as she passes down her wisdom and knowledge to her identical clone who will then for the 100 years live on as a replacement, in a world where climate change is sucking away all the water and existent on the planet, though a carving on a singular tree will forever be carved in existence.

What is remarkable about this production is the timing between the two performers, with the energy compelling enough to keep us hooked and dying to know it's uncertain outcome; as each clone is slowly developing over the centuries in which the course of the play takes place, the disintegration of once vivid storytelling slowly drifts into echoes as the quantity of hearts increase inside the body, until clones can live without the organ. Leah and Mhairi are both exceptional in speeches and dialect as they mimick eachother verbally and physically; you find yourself constantly fleeting between the two trying to notice differences with no luck, as they really manage to capture the existence of reproduction between cells.

Carla Grauls' writing constantly keeps us as the audience grounded; whilst each segment starts with the same photo-bombing retelling, we are constantly second-guessing the endless possibilities with a genuine sense of realism, and the idea of this possibly being a near future reality, running throughout. Andrew Twyman has gifted us with a thrilling undertaking to keep us on our toes; the movement choreographed between the two performers is slick and stylised, whilst using props such as a clipboard and a bowl of strawberries allows the story to flow beautifully with imagery that will stick for a long time.

Overall, Carla Grauls' Me Myself I is a compelling and thought-provoking piece of theatre that will leave you with a sense that we are personally not far away from this intense level of cloning ourselves, whilst also teaching us what it's like to falsely create a perfect life with a uncertainty on relationships and sexual experiences.